This invention relates to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, this invention relates to the ordering of processing operations within data processing systems.
It is known to provide data processing systems which use a plurality of input values in order to generate one or more result values. The input values may need to be fetched from a memory system. In some memory systems the input values may be returned in a variable order. Accordingly, in some known systems processing of the input values to generate the one or more result values does not take place until all of the input values have been received. This has the disadvantage that the input values need to be stored until they are used and that the processing may be delayed due to waiting for all the input values to be received before starting the processing.
In some data processing systems there is a strict requirement that a given set of input values should always produce the same results. In order to help in meeting this requirement it is known to enforce a requirement that processing operations performed to generate the results from the inputs should always be performed in the same order. This avoids the possibility that the results will be dependent upon the order in which processing operations are performed.